Last week, you threw the ball. This week, you bounce the ball. It's almost like a theme, or something!! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/BounceABall_20140805A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/BounceABall_20140805B_thumb.png">

Occasionally, I base games upon crazy bits of coding that seem fun to play with. Sometimes games can form from odd little artistic doodles that look strange and unusual. Other times, I'll start with a sound effect, or a piece of music, and allow it to fester away until a game has emerged. This week is different.. This week, the game's idea came solely from the stupid mock game title that randomly popped into my head. *shrugs* <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Alien_Spindome_20140603A_...

Today is, apparently, Amiga Day. Not entirely sure what it is we're supposed to do on Amiga Day, but I figured it'd be nice to compile one of my old AMOS games, and stick it onto my Archive for all to laugh at! I've actually dated this one in the code, as being from 1997!! No idea when in 1997, so I'll say it's probably December... but yeay! Oldest thing on my Archive o/ <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/JNK_Slalom_19971225A_thumb.png"> <im...

What happens when you take Platdude, sit him on a rocket, and send him blasting his way through a colourful rainbow tube, full of stars!? Time to find out, as we take our monthly trip into the realm of Platdude! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_a_Tube_20140527A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_a_Tube_20140527B_thumb.png">

Last month, I set aside the whole month to create a nice and lengthy month-long project. Blockman Worlds surprisingly took just a week to create, and then I was right back to the regular AGameAWeek schedule!! This month, I opted to delve into something even bulkier, and the resulting game is really quite nice. Oddly, it took alarmingly longer than expected, so isn't quite as chunky as I'd like it to have been. As it is, though, it's a wonderful little highly playable local-multiplayer edition of DynaBla...

I've just added my first Amiga game to my Jayenkai Archive. I've had access to the disk's files for a long time, but never got around to getting the compiler stuff up and running. Today, I finally buggered about with WinUAE and my collection of Amos disks, and got Amos Pro Compiler up and running. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/I_Got_A_Update.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/I_Got_A_Update.png" alt="I_Got_A_Update" width="655" height="419" ...

Yesterday I tweeted that Blockman Worlds isn't doing too well, at which point I got bombarded by people telling me that they've played it, and how I oughta give it time to spread. Yeah, probably.. Thing is, though, I'm finding myself comparing it to Future Classics..

What would happen if someone in the past was given a list of modern day videogame titles? What kind of games would they imagine from far off in their future? And what sort of games would they create, on their retro-tastic 8-bit home computers!? It's time, once again, to step inside the Future Classics Time Vortex, and find out!! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Future_Classics_-_1986_Edition_20140408A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Future_Classics_-_1986_Edit...

.. Sorry, I haven't suddenly added them. Instead, I've made this post in the hopes of starting a discussion on the feasibility of adding scoreboards to future AGameAWeek titles. It's something I've attempted in the past, and old versions of Microbes, Spider and others still kind-of, mostly, sort of work. But there's a few issues that are stopping me from integrating it into the current framework.

I like to randomly throw games out there, and see how the general public takes to them. Sometimes it's fun to watch as fun games plummet into disasterous pits of unnoticability. Occasionally, you get a surprise hit, and are kind of disappointed that you hadn't put any kind of pricetag on the thing. Today is a definite example of the latter, as I watch "Every Good Bird" flapping it's way into the stratosphere!

Every year for the past few years, I've made one of my games free for the day, to celebrate my birthday. This year, it's been decided that SpikeDislike2 will be the game of choice. (URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-22-02-14-04-58-06.jpg"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-22-02-14-04-58-06_thumb.jpg"> Help celebrate the wonders of my birthday by (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/app/id604867277">grabbing a copy of SpikeDislike2, for...

When I first bought my iPad, I never imagined the amount of "work" that I'd end up doing on the thing. The fact is, it's SO much easier to have your iPad on hand, than it is a giant laptop. That's not to say I don't use my laptop. It's pretty much an essential part of AGameAWeek. You can't exactly do your coding on iOS, so the laptop is there for the majority of the things I do, but over the course of the last year-or-so, I've found myself doing smaller bit-tasks on my iPad. I figured I should probab...

In the first of a (hopefully) full year of monthly Platdude related releases, Platdude gets to wander through a giant forest, battling enemy creatures, and avoiding deadly spikes! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_The_Endless_Forest_20140127B_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_The_Endless_Forest_20140127A_thumb.png">

(URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-28-12-13-02-53-30.jpg"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-28-12-13-02-53-30_thumb.jpg"> Hmmm....

This week, Platdude gets his first real outing for about 3 and a half years!! Poor fella's been cooped up for so long, he's started to go a bit doolally! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=312"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/JNKPlat_-_Xmas_2013_20131219B_thumb.png">

The OUYA edition of our great big Neovember game is now available in the OUYA Sandbox. You can grab it from the discovery doohickey. Simply search for "NeonPlat" and you'll find it. The Windows edition will be updated at some point in the next few days, and I'll be hopefully submitting the iOS edition to Apple some time later today. There's still lots of little tweaks to do for the touchscreen controls, but otherwise it's all running nicely. *phew* So much to do! Crazy times ahead!! (URL "https...

Yet another case of AGameAWeek Gold being strangely interconnected with other events in my life!! Today, I posted about Star Trek Pong 3 earlier today, and it got me thinking about the even older Amiga edition. Curiously, I also recently purchased a USB Capture device for my PC. I wanted to output all my consoles and computers through my PC's monitor. It has a HDMI port, but a Scart->HDMI device seemed a little pricey. Being the cheapskate that I am, I instead settled for a Capture device, which bas...

It feels like AGES since I last posted a Sheep Goes Right test. In fact, it's been just over a month. October 14th was the last version, and today I'm posting a second test release. This time, I'm releasing an APK for OUYA. For testing purposes, this should also work on Android devices, but it's untested, and I'm not exactly sure how Monkey copes with things like that! ..it'll have a great big overscan border, for starters!!! Anyway, if you've an OUYA, I'd appreciate a quick test, and some feedback....

Neovember is a month in which I'm taking the engine from NeonPlat Raw, and playing about with it to create a bunch of different gameplay styles. Once we're done, I'll bundle everything back into a package, and pop it up on all the different systems. This week's experimental gameplay mode comes courtesy of Blockman. Not the hungry-pellet-eating version of Blockman, the classic platforming/collection form. You start the game as you normally would, with you, some balls, and some bad guys. There's also a...

Right, time for a new plan. The last plan fell apart, and I'm struggling to come up with new games that work with all the possible targets, nicely. Grrr! So, instead, I've opted to do something that I initially planned to do months and months ago. When I created "NeonPlat Raw" back in June, I purposely gave it the name "Raw" so that a future (premium?) expansion could be called "Extreme!" For Extreme, I'm thinking something along the lines of how NeonPlat 2 was a HUGE leap from NeonPlat 1. Different...

Over the course of the past 5 weeks, BlastTrax has sold 16 copies. SIXTEEN.... That's just bloody well shit... I've made the game free for a couple of days. Grab it while you can, and don't expect any more damn updates. Sod that shit! (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/blasttrax/id689619329?mt=8">Grab it Here)

Late last night, NeonPlat Raw appeared on the OUYA Dashboard for the very first time. This is kind of a big deal, in that it's the first time one of my games has officially been released on an actual physical home-console. True, it's not a "PROPER" console, but .. Hey, it's a box with a controller that plugs into my telly. And it's got my games on it! So, Hell yeah, It's proper enough to me!! If you have an OUYA, you can grab (URL "https://www.ouya.tv/game/NeonPlat-Raw">NeonPlat Raw) for it. It's...

Want a nice free game to play on your tiny OUYA console?! How about NeonPlat Raw?! Since I'm still learning the OUYA ropes, and still trying to figure everything out, I've not yet got my whole OUYA-Dev-Account stuff fully sorted. (erk, Tax forms!!?) So, in the meantime, we'll have to resort to throwing random crap online for free! o/yeayo/

(URL "https://socoder.net/NeonPlatRaw_OUYATest.apk">NeonPlat Raw : OUYA Test (.apk : Grab it on your OUYA!))

<img src="https://AGameAWeek.co...

Testing time, again. Today, I purchased 2 very different, yet entirely similar devices. First, a wire. Very cheap! It allows me to plug an X360 controller into my Nexus7 device, and use it as an ingame controller, but only on games which support it. ( width="480" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RoRpCm0UJhM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Second, an OUYA. Nicely cheap! It allows me to plop Android games on it, and assuming they're develo...

I finally wrangled my way through "the big update" over the course of two nights.. Day one was having to upgrade to Mountain Lion (I was in hospital when it came out, and hadn't bothered to upgrade since).. This was swiftly* followed by installing XCode5. The reason for all this, is that iOS7 devices need XCode5, and XCode5 needs Mountain Lion. It's Apple's special way of making sure all us developers constantly upgrade everything! * Given that my Mac is at the exact opposite side of the house as my...

People keep asking about how I manage to code AGameAWeek, and one thing they all eventually pick up on is that I'm currently doing it all with Monkey. (URL "https://monkeycoder.co.nz">Monkey) is a fantastic language which allows for all manner of different targets, and does a great job doing what it does. It isn't perfect, and it's not for everyone, but it suits me down to the ground. As with any development tool, it all comes down to preference, and whether or not you agree with the methodology o...